Rogue Grader: Manu Aeternitatis

...or, 'How we executed mutiny'

The session begins with the Rogue Trader Roland (NPC) calling a meeting. There, he gives instructions to acquire a navigation chart, a writ of salvage, and some mercenaries. He promptly leaves the ship to pray at the shrine located on Port Wander, the station the Quaestus Aeternam is currently docked.

The party splits up. Rogue Trader Ajunta (Zach) and Senechal Sarvus (Brandon) work their way through the Imperial Bureaucracy and get a signed Warrant of Salvage for the “Emperor’s Bounty” from Yuni, a mid-ranking adept.

Meanwhile, Arch-Militant Darius (Sean) and the Navigator Kunt (Katie) visit another docked Rogue Trader, Jeramiah Blitz in hopes of hiring some mercenaries and getting a copy of their warp charts. After some brief haggling, they get both.

With the return of the the Explorator, Praxis (Vic, not present and perviously had an adventure of his own), they set off into the Maw, a turbulent region of space which is nestled between two persistent warp storms.

As they exit the Empyrean, they realize that bringing their raider in close proximity to the Battlegrounds would be a dangerous endeavor, and could damage the ship. Roland decides to leave Adjunta in charge of the salvage operation, leaving without telling his purpose. Adjunta decides to take his Guncutter with a salvage crew instead. En-route, they receive a distress call from the Quaestus Aeternam – They’re under attack by a large transport ship.

They hastily return to the ship as the battle begins, with neither ship significantly harming the other. Roland is still sequestered away, supposedly in his quarters. Adjunta and Kunt rush to the bridge to aid in the battle, while Sarvus and Darius rush to Roland’s quarters, to determine why the Captain is not on the bride during a fire-fight.

They force open Roland’s door, and find him armorless and shirtless, striking himself repeatedly with a barbed whip, chanting in High Gothic. Darius, with a chance to work out his vengeance for his forced-servitude to the Rogue Trader, fires his heavy bolter at the seemingly helpless Roland.

A fight breaks out. Using some sort of Eldar Force Shield, Roland ignores the heavy bolter fire. Sarvus tries to talk Darius and Roland down, but Darius continues firing. Roland charges Darius with his mono-whip, but Darius manages to parry the blow and destroy the weapon with his recently-acquired Chain-sword.

Roland attempts to flee to his personal armory, but is shot in the leg (despite his Eldar shielding). He throws back his head in pain, and shouts, “Nurgle, save me!”

Immediately, he starts to mutate. His remaining clothing is destroyed by the sudden growth, including his Eldar Shield-belt. He is healed, then almost immediately brought low by Sarvus, who shoots him at point-blank with an inferno-pistol twice.

The session ended here, but questions remain. When, why, and how did Roland fall to Chaos? How will the crew react to finding their Lord-Captain has been slain by his own sworn body-guard? Will the Quaestus Aeternam be victorious against it’s mysterious assailant? Only time will tell.

... or, "Where did all this Eldar shit come from?"

The session begins with Roland (NPC), the Rogue Trader, giving a task to the Explorator Praxis (Vic). Tasked with gathering tow-cables for starships, a gellar field, and spare plasma-drive components, Praxis departs the Quaestus Aeternam onto the void-docks of Port Wander.

Having completed his assigned tasks, he questions himself on what the next steps are. He decides to travel to a Rogue Trader’s ship, Ordained Destiny, led by an unknown entity that declares himself to be “Jeremiah Blitz”. The Ordained Destiny is an ostentatious cruiser, seemingly built for style and trade than for combat.

Having snuck aboard by walking through the front door, he made his way beyond the docking and cargo area, seeking something within the bowels of the ship. He determined there appears to be a cargo area separate from the others, directly adjacent to the officer quarters and the Bridge. He decides if something on this ship is worth his time, it is best he start there.

However, guests are not welcome so deep within the ship. He passed a security checkpoint unseen, and managed to gain control of a Servo-Skull that had detected him and attempted to raise an alarm.

On his way up the ship, he found himself in an elevator with a mysterious crate, and it’s handlers. Curious as to what is in the crate, he used his Servo-Skulls and Explorator Binary to confuse the deck hands, and they evacuated the elevator.

Inside, he determines there is a young eldar female with some sort of tech-collar attached. He does not open the crate.

Having locked down this particular elevator shaft, he walks to this mysterious cargo bay. Above the door reads the script: Jeramiah Blitz’s Personal Trophy Room. Using the mysteries of properly-applied tech-rituals, he coaxed the door to open for him.

Inside is the personal treasures of the Rogue Trader. He sees a shrine of Eldar technology, a suit of Space Marine holy artificer power armor, and a mysteriously labeled “Xenorium”, with a door seperating the section.

He packs up the power armor and most of the Eldar tech, and opens the Xenorium to look inside. He finds creatures he doesnt recognize (failed Forbidden Lore: Xeno test), beasts large, and small. Almost all of them that look dangerous are dead. All of them, except the beings at the very end, seemingly the pride of his collection.

Praxis breaks into the enclosure to talk with the self-proclaimed “Farseer Serrenon”, and released them (if only to examine their interesting tech-collars). The Eldar then made a stealthy escape, one of them breaking into Praxis’ vault to grab an exotic set of armor and bladed staff.

Praxis hauled his loot back to the elevator (earning some odd looks), and took it to the “bottom” of the ship, where lie the ships Teleportarium.

There he encountered a pair of Adeptus Mechanicus adepts praying and maintaining the Teleportarium. Praxis instructs them to leave, and they do not. A fight breaks out, and Praxis kills both adepts, and teleports off the ship. He tried and failed to cover his tracks with determining where he was teleporting to. He returns with extra crates, an extra Servo-Skull, and two fresh corpses in the ship’s Cargo Hold.